Posted
by
Soulskill
on Monday March 22, 2010 @03:29PM
from the gauntlet-thrown dept.

abs0lutz3ro writes with a major update to the Google/China situation we've been discussing so much lately:
"Google has stopped censoring simplified Chinese search results on google.cn by redirecting users to google.com.hk, which Google maintains is entirely legal. From the official blog: 'We want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services, including users in mainland China, yet the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement. We believe this new approach of providing uncensored search in simplified Chinese from Google.com.hk is a sensible solution to the challenges we've faced—it's entirely legal and will meaningfully increase access to information for people in China. We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision, though we are well aware that it could at any time block access to our services. We will therefore be carefully monitoring access issues, and have created this new web page, which we will update regularly each day, so that everyone can see which Google services are available in China.' Seems like google.cn got served (from google.com.hk)."

That's called jingoism. Usually, jingoism wears off after certain period of time - usually a week. But some flavors of jingoism - especially the ones arising from propaganda - will last untill the objectives of the propagandist are fulfilled.

Hong Kong also uses Traditional Chinese, and there are differences in word usages etc between HK written Chinese and mainland written Chinese.

Google have specially made a Simplified Chinese version and are hosting it out of google.com.hk, aimed at mainlanders. When you access google.com.hk from a browser that is configured to ask for pages in Simplified Chinese, google.com.hk delivers you that version.

It even says under the search box (in simplified Chinese), "Welcome to the new home of Google in China!".

Right. Also remember that a large number of Chinese citizens are on the side of their government, hard to believe as that may be. The prevailing attitude seems to be "they should not do business here if they don't respect our local laws", and moreover many people there see Google as an extension of the US government's foreign policy (state media has played up ties between Googlers and the US government.

Surprising as it may seem, a large, large number (maybe majority, I don't have statistics) are perfectly fine with censorship, and are immensely proud of their country despite its flaws (nationalism strikes again!).

My limited understanding of Hong Kong vis a vi China is that the Chinese allow a certain amount of economic freedom to Hong Kong in order to reap the benefits. Although Hong Kong might enjoy more freedom than the rest of China, there is no doubt that the Chinese do in fact own Hong Kong and Hong Kong is in fact part of China. I wonder if there will be any backlash against Hong Kong as a whole because of what Google is doing.

In a nutshell it seems like they're saying, "Nahy nahy, we're in Hong Kong now. You can't touch us." That seems rather short sighted to me. On the other hand, they have a fairly defensible position. Would the Chinese risk looking like even more severe tyrants by disrupting the dynamics that govern companies in Hong Kong?

I wasn't quite able to figure out the attitudes there. Where I was (Chengdu), everyone used anonymous proxies like crazy, and while they were quickly blocked more would spring up, with DNS/IPs often distributed on email lists. It was treated a bit like speeding in the U.S. I guess--technically illegal, best to avoid the cops, but everyone does it. I was using my corporate VPN as an easier access method, and even though VPNs are, as best I can tell, in the same sort of legal grey area, my usage really fre

Ever since Hong Kong return to China politicians and activists have tried to preserve the region's freedoms. The consensus seems to be that Hong Kong has been losing those freedoms, China has done a lot of meddling and the government has generally sided with the PRC. I don't recall the precise details but recently a number of politicians have openly protested China trying to exert more control. If I remember correctly, I think they suggested Hong Kong's politicians resigning en masse bringing about new elections with the hope that people would vote in those who would preserve the region's autonomy. I don't think much of anything came of it.

From a business perspective Hong Kong is, without question, a far more mature market. They wont face the same kind of cut-throat market still rampant in China. The problem in China for Google isn't simply one of hackers. A company will try to set up a partnership with a Chinese company and that company will turn on them, stealing whatever they can in the process. And the foreign company will be powerless to do anything about it because the Chinese courts almost always side with their own companies. Punishments for Chinese companies tend to amount to a slap on the wrist. Some very successful people have gotten burned badly in China. Certainly, there's success to be had, but you'd better be vigilant and have a very trusted networks. I have friends who have dipped their toes in China and have decided that the potential for success wasn't worth the trouble.

The nature of Google's business gives them the luxury of not having to be physically present in China. But the fact is that they still are in China, they're going to be facing many of the same issues they were facing in the mainland.

If they were serious about making a statement they'd base themselves in Taiwan. But then again, the Taiwanese government probably doesn't want to get involved, especially given the current administration.

One of the big things China is banging on about is that Google needs to obey their laws. Ok, fine, they are. They are locating themselves in Hong Kong and obeying the law there, which as China will happily tell you is a part of China.

May make people ask why China is being so bitchy if Google is IN China and obeying the laws. All one country... right?

My daughter just moved to china to work for a year. Our family has a google app domain that we all use for email. Before she left I configured her laptop so she could send and receive mail but I'm worried that google's china dispute might escalate.

Does anyone know the mechanism used by the "great firewall"? For example, if our MX records are aspmx.l.google.com (and from memory google run their SMTP/IMAP on non-standard ports too) is this likely to be caught up in a series of tit-for-tat blocking or will

For what it's worth, because basically every single post in this discussion is wrong:
1) Hong Kong Google provides uncensored Internet search results. However, the websites themselves are still censored. For instance, using Hong Kong Google won't be a magic way to access blocked porn sites. Really the uncensored results are kind of a pain for normal use, it just means a bunch of broken links.
2) Hong Kong Google isn't anything new to China. Before Google set up a PRC Google, 3 years ago or so, that was the way PRC China users accessed Google. And for the past 3 years, Hong Kong Google has always been accessible.
3) Hong Kong is China, but the government in effect is guaranteed independence until 2047. Obviously there's some caveats and whatnot, but the PRC wouldn't just renege on this and tell HK Google what to do, because it would look bad internationally, and because they'd like Taiwan to agree to something similar.
4) Really, what this will do is slow Google searches by.03 seconds, and search results will provide a lot of links to websites that have been blocked (which if you're searching non-sensitive items in Chinese language, doesn't happen all that often - if you're searching non-sensitive English items, there are a fair number of false positives). I'm guessing a lot of localizations also will be lost or left undeveloped (for instance, Google Maps can tell you which subways to take to get around Shanghai).

The British already gave.hk back to the PRC back in 2000 (i think that's the right year), so they already have it. It's just maintained as a semi-autonomous "free-enterprise zone" iirc. They don't need to invade it, conquer it or annex it. They just need to enforce the law there in the same way they do everywhere else.

Hong Kong is part of China, it has different regulations however as a result of being handed over by the UK. I believe the phrase is "one country, two systems". In all fairness its not a bad idea; if China were this flexible over Tibet they would be getting a lot of International Brownie points

Chiang Kai-Shek's only virtue was that he wasn't Mao. Past that, neither he nor the Kuomintang were exemplars of good governance, which is why Mao was able to overrun China in the first place. The only reason the KMT (and, by association, Taiwan) hasn't revoked its claim to the mainland is because doing so would be interpreted by the PRC as a declaration of independence. Past that, the KMT is about as likely to retake the mainland as the Tories are to retake the US.

Well, no, but he wasn't exactly a freedom-fighter or a lover of civil liberties. He gained power by a military coup and kept it with an iron fist. Look up Taiwan's White Terror [wikipedia.org] sometime. The only real difference between him and Mao was that he was a power hungry conservative that embraced tried-and-true Chinese tradition as his ideological touchstone instead of the murderously destructive interpretation of

when you think about it.
China can either draw attention to the fact that they treat the residents of Hong Kong differently to the Chinese mainland by blocking internet traffic within 'China' or raise the ire of the HK residents (who they are so so wanting to keep happy) by cutting them off.
Personally whilst I'm all for the 'internet being without censorship' - I think the kicking of China is somewhat unfair. Whilst China may be quite upfront about saying "this is wrong, we don't want you to see it" - pre

I think it's a brilliant move. This is a company that proves so powerfull it can say Fsck You to China and even get away with it, if only for a short while. This is one of the best things Google can do to show that it cares about human rights.

Actually almost all HK news sites are not accessible in the mainland since the people start using Internet. China does not care about embarrassment but control.

The strange things are that the mainland cable TV networks (in the southern provinces) carry full TV programs from HK, because they are more popular than the politically correct programs from the mainland TV networks, but block only during the broadcast of certain sensitive news item. Of course, even a fool would tell something bad has happened by this type of blunt actions. And therefore nobody really believes whatever the government is saying. Yet at the same time, majority of the same people seem to agree that (a) social stability is more important than anything else; (b) some truths are better kept as open secrets.

The only good is that the Chinese government's propaganda control is largely still very blunt and kaming it easy to tell it is progranda. When they fully learned American style political marketing and packaging, it would be worse.

Yes, exactly. But this is *very* interesting from a geopolitical perspective. Because of Hong Kong's former status of a British colony, it has always enjoyed a separate set of rules, apart from "mainland" China. The censorship laws are generally less intrusive and citizens there have much more free reign over their affairs. I believe there are even elected officials who are not mandatorily members of the Communist party.

My interpretation of this is that Google is REALLY pissing China off intentionally by doing this - exploiting the schism between Hong Kong and mainland China, forcing issues to the forefront which the Chinese like to ignore (like why does Hong Kong get less centralized control than other parts of China). This could be quite a large issue in China and Hong Kong should China decide to dictate terms to the more autonomous Hong Kong.

Because of Hong Kong's former status of a British colony, it has always enjoyed a separate set of rules, apart from "mainland" China. The censorship laws are generally less intrusive and citizens there have much more free reign over their affairs.
My interpretation of this is that Google is REALLY pissing China off intentionally by doing this - exploiting the schism between Hong Kong and mainland China, forcing issues to the forefront which the Chinese like to ignore (like why does Hong Kong get less centralized control than other parts of China). This could be quite a large issue in China and Hong Kong should China decide to dictate terms to the more autonomous Hong Kong.

How is Google's "Don't Be Evil" mantra going to be viewed if they end up causing the censorship of all of Hong Kong's internet access? Ouch.

If a robber points a gun at a child and tells you to hand over all your money, and you refuse, and the child gets shot, you are NOT responsible for the child's death. That would be ridiculous, and would essentially give criminals legal force. The robber alone is responsible.

Pragmatically, this might cause trouble for Hong Kong, but morally, Google's in the right here.

IANAL, but I think this might only be if you have legally assaulted the person. At that point you have broken a crime and are therefore liable for the outcome of it. But, the argument could be made that Google has broken the law, so I am not saying that you are wrong.

If a robber points a gun at a child and tells you to hand over all your money, and you refuse, and the child gets shot, you are NOT responsible for the child's death. That would be ridiculous, and would essentially give criminals legal force. The robber alone is responsible.

Pragmatically, this might cause trouble for Hong Kong, but morally, Google's in the right here.

Sure, you might not be legally responsible, but not feeling morally responsible would be inhuman.

I would say yes, it is acceptable. Consider the full consequences, not just the immediate:

1) You don't give him the money. A child dies, but leaving behind a lot of evidence and likely causing the criminal to go to jail (or at least get really psychologically shaken up and maybe change his ways)

2) You do give him the money. No one dies, but the criminal gets a few hundred dollars and gets away. Encouraged by his success, he goes out and does it again, and so do his friends. Even more people will give the criminals money, and one or more children will die along the way.

This type of logic is inane. If a spouse says "Don't make me hit you," and then proceeds to beat their spouse for not having dinner ready the person doing the beating is at fault. China is responsible for China's actions pure and simple. What Google has does in perfectly LEGAL within the current legal structure of China, if they don't like their own laws....

No, what China will probably end up doing is blocking access to Google's Hong Kong site from mainland China. But blocking access to a site operated legally "within China" might be more controversial in China than making a foreign company leave if they refuse to play by the government's rules. It's a gambit: Google is forcing the Chinese government to decide exactly how stubborn they're willing to be.

If China is so hell bent on censoring that it would actually pull a dick move like that, then I say it's on China.

Put another way...

A bank robber takes a customer hostage. The police try to sharpshoot the robber and in the robber's last moments somehow gets enough adrenaline to squeeze off a scorched earth shot that kills the hostage a split second after the police take him down.

I for one would praise Google for finding a loophole, and condemn China alone for squashing innocent bystanders in the process of

If China decides to censor Hong Kong's Internet access, that is not Google doing evil but the central Chinese government doing evil. If someone antagonizes you on the street and you punch them, guess who gets jailtime? Every entity, be it individual, corporation, city or national government, is responsible for its own actions. And don't tell me that "Google made them do it". That's just as lame as "He made me punch him!" It just doesn't work that way.

Hong Kong was a British colony for over a hundred years, the people of Hong Kong aren't as hook line and sinker for the old following of the party line- they had a fairly British education system run there for the best part of a hundred years. Also, as part of the hand back to China, Hong Kong has 50 years protection (so what, around 37 left?) to self-govern, any attempts to change that by China would be a big deal internationally, pretty much akin to China anexing a neighbouring country on the political sc

The real question is... did Google consult the local Hong Kong officials before doing this? If they planned it correctly, this could turn into a big, hot (interesting) mess. If they did this on a whim, one phone call to a "local official" will have them pull the plug on Google before anything comes of the situation.

My interpretation of this is that Google is REALLY pissing China off intentionally by doing this - exploiting the schism between Hong Kong and mainland China, forcing issues to the forefront which the Chinese like to ignore (like why does Hong Kong get less centralized control than other parts of China). This could be quite a large issue in China and Hong Kong should China decide to dictate terms to the more autonomous Hong Kong.

Personally, I'd have gone for +1 Insightful for this. It potentially serves to emphasise to the mainlanders that they are somehow second class to the citizens of HK. A former colleague once described going from HK to the mainland to visit a supplier as like going from West Berlin to communist East Berlin. He was talking about all the security involved - and having to be followed around by a communist party apparatchik all the time. However, you do have to wonder if there are other parallels to be drawn

Personally, I'd have gone for +1 Insightful for this. It potentially serves to emphasise to the mainlanders that they are somehow second class to the citizens of HK. A former colleague once described going from HK to the mainland to visit a supplier as like going from West Berlin to communist East Berlin. He was talking about all the security involved - and having to be followed around by a communist party apparatchik all the time. However, you do have to wonder if there are other parallels to be drawn there...

I don't know. Was the the apparatchchik a good looking woman? That could have been a good thing.

I love this play by Google, China is forced into one of two things: Either A, admit the people of Hong Kong are a significantly different culture than the rest of the country (in that they can handle uncensored access to information but the rest of China cannot). Or B, trying to enforce the mainland censorship laws on a large, prosperous group of Chinese people who are have been without this kind of interference from the mainland for a long, long time.

They'll be reluctant to do B because it's entirely possible that Hong Kong is politically powerful enough to actually do something to change the status quo. Of course, if they do A, then they are saying Hong Kong's success is partially explained by their more open culture, which they absolutely cannot have since it implies that the mainland culture is inferior. And they did it in such a way that they are obeying the letter of the law in China, telling the Chinese people the reason for the move, and just plain rubbing China's face in the duplicity of it all.

My thoughts exactly. Google has just raised the stakes in the "one country, two systems game."

Google is probably technically right, but I can't see China allowing firms to evade censorship by moving to Hong Kong. The stakes are huge when you factor in Taiwan. If China cracks down on Hong Kong, it could give new impetus to the Taiwan independence question, potentially destabilizing the region.

On the other hand, if nobody calls the Chinese bluff, people will eventually begin to forget the promise of "one

Another interpretation could be that this move to hong kong allows the Chinese government to save face. They've been very public about their issues with google's operation in mainland China, while google is far from the biggest player in the market.
The idea of the censorship is not just to totally block access to certain information. Reminding people where the line is drawn (no matter how vaguely) by public shows of power is just as important. Chinese censorship, afaik, is more concerned with the broadcasting side of communication than with the receiving end. It's hard to prevent people from looking for information (see ToR / proxies etc).

It's easier to go after the source ('dissidents') and scare people into not spreading information. Going after google in the state newspaper and on tv etc. is also a way of communicating to the chinese people that 'our rules are still in place'.

Moving to Hong Kong might allow google to continue their service to China, while at the same time the Chinese government can say that it 'won' the discussion and reach its goal of reminding it's public (the Chinese population) about its position on freedom of information / opinion.

If it works out that way it's a pretty smart business move from google, allowing for a way out of the zero-sum game they were in.

It may be "completely legal" to provide uncensored Simplified Chinese search in Hong Kong, but that doesn't mean "mainland"[1] China won't just block google.com.hk in response (which it probably will, soon).

If I recall correctly, China is under obligation to at least pretend that Hong Kong is still free. Which is to say, citizens of Hong Kong technically maintain all the freedom they enjoyed under British control. When the authorities manipulate HK media or harass citizens, they keep it secretive. China has to be a lot more low-profile when they oppress the people of Hong Kong, so that the global community doesn't suddenly start to care again and call shenanigans.

China has to be a lot more low-profile when they oppress the people of Hong Kong, so that the global community doesn't suddenly start to care again and call shenanigans.

Or do what, exactly? Implement an embargo? Impose sanctions? Go to war?

China is pretty embedded in the world at this point, unlike where it was a mere 13 years ago when they got Hong Kong back from the Brits. How much manufacturing and raw materials come out from China? How much foreign currency and debt do they control?

At least with questions about Taiwan there's a de facto stalemate. Google is putting its employees in China at risk (remember, they "treated" opium addiction with a bullet to the head) and f

Last time I checked, Hong Kong was was transfered [wikipedia.org] to full Chinese control about 13 years ago. So is this some sort of symbolic stunt done for some obscure reason, or is it actually supposed to accomplish something? Saying you're going to defy Chinese control by moving your HQ from Beijing to Hong Kong is like saying you're going to get out from under U.S. control by moving from New York to Chicago.

More like moving to Guam, Northern Marianas, or maybe, Puerto Rico or USVI given the 'non-State' status of those.

China has 5 different types of Autonomous areas:
1) Autonomous banner (in Inner Mongolia)
2) Autonomous County
3) Autonomous Prefecture
4) Autonomous Region. Autonomous region has its own local government with the right to appoint the governer (from the local minority) For example Tibetan people in Tibet, the Zhuang in Guangxi, the Uyghur in Xinjiang, the Mongols in Inner Mongolia, and the Hui in Ningxia.
5) Special Administrative Region
Special Administrative Regions of China include Hong Kong and Macau. Special Administrative Regions are responsible for everything except diplomatic relations and national defence. So effectively Hong Kong and Macau have their own legal system, completely different from the rest of the country. More importantly unlike in mainland China in Hong Kong it is possible to watch Youtube and use Facebook.

OK.Along time ago, It was taken by the British empire.A long time passes and they have been enjoying an open society with a free market and almost no censorship.

The it was given back to China, who had plans to basically censor it and treat it like every place else in ChinaThe Tienanmen Square happened. The events outraged people. The last time that happened China underwent a revolution.

So they made a social deal. Hong Kong gets to keep it's free market, and no one in China ever mentions Tienanmen Sqr.

Think of it like a game of chess, where you spend a long time making opening moves, a careful dance of threats and counter-threats. Then, one player sees an opportunity, and move after move occurs, piece after piece taken in rapid succession.

Personally I believe we're just watching a dance that has long ago been choreographed to its conclusion.

Economic sanctions against China? Are we talking about the country called "Peoples republic of China"?A country that export tons off stuff towards USA and Europe? The country that owns billions in US treasury bonds?

There will be, eventually. It's an empirical fact. The bonds are just bits of paper. They won't carry any value in the final stages of the dance. We'll just say "we owed you XX billion, your actions caused XX billion damage to our corporations, we're even." See?

If you don't understand the pressure you have when you own one nations debts, please read this Wikipedia article that describes how USA with economic pressure ended United Kingdoms status as world power in 1956:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis [wikipedia.org]

That action of an "allied" power should learn each person how important financial power is and clearly tell you why the Chinese owns USA.

It might be. Local human rights violations, global economic shenagins, global environmental problems. Its possible that they could push the rest of the world too far. On the other hand a China that wasn't economically entangled with the rest of the world might become very dangerous.

I suspect that the Chinese response will be to silently block all traffic to Google, and then stop mentioning Google anymore in the news. Completely drop the subject. Because they've been backed into a corner where they can't actually make themselves look good anymore, it will be best (from the government perspective) to drop the topic completely and move on to a different subject. Maybe there will be a lot of stories in the Chinese newspaper about how evil Taiwan is, just to get people distracted.

This whole censorship thing is mainly a marketing ploy. Google is making a gamble that this will help them gain market share in China.

Don't get me wrong I'm in favor of what Google is doing and I hope this leads to the end of censorship in China. But from a business persepctive, Google is threatening to pull out because it's not making much headway in gaining marketshare, while Baidu consistently have 60% marketshare. They are earning only about 1.5% of their profit from China. This recent strategy to threaten to drop censorship not only differentiate Google's search engine product from others in China, but also generates alot of news over there and over here. As much I would like to believe that a company is putting ethics above profit, the reality is giving uncensored search access to China is the last of Google's concerns (esp. since they still offer censored search to numerous other countries). But since Google's goals and my hopes coincide, go Google!

Just because Google has an ulterior motive to provide uncensored access does not mean that it is not a concern. As you said, the move to oppose censorship differentiates their product and generates attention.

The CCP are hostile and dishonest towards foreigners not because it's in their interests, but because it's in their nature.

It's also in the (perceived and possibly actual) best interests of the tyrants in power (even if not in the best interests of China as a whole).

They're keeping a quarter of the world's population under control by force and by suppression of information. A free flow of information is likely to collapse their power structure - and circulate the news of their past crimes so they end up un

It's not so much a moral high ground of not dealing with people you don't like. Google wants to play ball with China, but it intends to beat them on fair terms; China intends to cheat. Rather than leave and let all the other players deal with China's unsportsmanlike conduct, Google is sitting around figuring out how to stay in the game and beat China regardless of their behavior.

In other words, they're not doing anything unethical themselves; and they're strategizing their business maneuvers to both be profitable and attempt to follow an ethical basis. They have many choices, some blatantly evil and some where they throw their weight around to maximize their profits while either not hurting anyone or performing a humanitarian service; although these are business decisions, they can be made on more tasteful basis than squeezing the last few dollars out of an already profitable operation.